


One Night

by Takada_Saiko



Series: Fallen [33]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Early Relationship, F/M, Misunderstandings, Valentine's Day, the treehouse years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 12:29:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13636308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Takada_Saiko/pseuds/Takada_Saiko
Summary: When Bobo surprises Willa with a trip to the Big City and a hotel room, it doesn't turn out exactly as she expected.  Set during the treehouse years. Valentine's Day fic.





	One Night

 

 

They didn't exactly have a conventional relationship, not that Willa would have known first hand what all that entailed. She had read enough, though, and when she was younger she had watched movies and television shows with her sisters. Dates were normal. Dinner, the movies, drinks, and sometimes something a bit more adventurous. Not that dating Robert was anything like the movies, if it could even be called dating. It was still new, an exploration of taking what had turned into a trusted friendship to the next level. He was hesitant, like he spent half the time trying to talk himself out of whatever his first instinct was, and they rarely left the treehouse, much less the surrounding area. After nearly a decade since he had told the Seven that he'd killed the young Earp Heir he was still afraid that someone would catch sight of her or notice her. It took every trick she knew just to get him to wander in the woods with her or lie out under the stars by the lake. Romantic gestures weren't a natural inclination for him, so it would seem, especially not when they conflicted with whatever he thought he needed to do to keep her safe.

Every now and again he surprised her though.

Willa watched the world pass by in silence from the passenger's seat of a car that she hadn't known Robert knew how to drive. She had seen him as more of a blur on one of the many motorcycles that he had owned over the years when she was a child, but the idea of him driving a car like any normal person had never crossed her mind. Just like the idea that he would have cared about a silly holiday like Valentine's Day enough to take her on the rare trip away from the treehouse hadn't even been a dream she had let herself consider. Now that they were on their way it was all she could do to contain her excitement.

Robert, on the other hand, was more stoic than usual. His clear blue gaze was fixed on the road in front of them, only shifting to look in the mirrors every couple of minutes. He hadn't told her where they were going, but had shown up later than he'd said he would be there and had handed her a bag, instructing her to pack a few things. It had been vague, not that that was particularly unusual for him. He wasn't the type to share any more than he had to, even with her most days, and if he was doing his best to find somewhere special to take her then she was okay with a few secrets.

As the snow-covered countryside sped by, their car flying across the open road, Willa found herself wondering why so many Revenants stayed in Purgatory. It was the curse, she supposed as she leaned her forehead against the cold glass. Always the curse, and the curse always landed the Heir in Purgatory. It pushed the Revenants, coercing them. Even the ones that might not have been quite as bloodthirsty in life became demons, driven to hound and kill each and every Earp Heir. She'd heard Robert describe it like that, the words dancing off his tongue as he rolled his eyes a little, but he'd never told her who he was quoting. It would be easier if they left, but she knew he wouldn't, not until he could cross the line and leave for good. Even a cage as large as the Ghost River Triangle was still a cage, though most days she wished her own was even half that size.

She was staying for him, though, she reminded herself. So that in a few years when she turned twenty-seven they could walk across the line hand in hand and Robert would be free to leave with her. It was worth that, and she knew that he had his reasons for staying in Purgatory.

Hazel eyes flickered to the city lights that she saw as the topped a hill and she sat up. "We're going to the city?"

"Yeah," Robert huffed from the driver's seat, the first word that he'd said since they had left their little town.

It wasn't like there were too many other places that he physically could go other than the wilderness between Purgatory and the Big City, and while Robert might have managed it without too much trouble, he would know she'd prefer to stay in the treehouse to freezing her ass off in the middle of nowhere. Still, this had never been an option that he had brought up before.

They drove up to a hotel. It was nice. It seemed nice, anyway. She really wasn't sure she was the best judge, but the fact that someone offered to take her bag was more than anything that would have happened in Purgatory, nearly ten years since she'd out and about in town or not. She watched Robert move, a cap pulled low so that it hid his hair and a scarf wrapped up around his chin so that the white patch in his beard would draw fewer eyes. Fewer Revenants resided in the Big City, but that didn't mean that one or two wouldn't go, and if they saw him with the supposed-dead Earp Heir, it would put him in a complicated place. He'd told them that he had killed her years ago. Once inside, though, they should be safe. Revenants wouldn't really fit in with this crowd.

"C'mon," he said gruffly and grabbed her bag from the floor in front of her before she could bend for it herself.

"Slow down. It's not a race," she grumbled lightly, having to jog a little to catch up with his long stride and doing her best to ignore the paranoid way that his gaze shifted to all corners of the lobby. "Hey." She reached out as he stepped into the elevator, her fingers catching his free hand. "What's the rush? You excited to get upstairs?" she teased, hoping to ease what she thought must have been nerves.

A soft growl escaped him and she grinned, her fingers lacing through his as the elevator doors closed, leaving them alone for their trip to the sixth floor that he had punched. She leaned into him, her head resting against his arm. "I'm glad we're doing this."

Robert stiffened a little next to her. "Exactly what is it do you think we're doing?"

She snorted. "Okay, you can drop it. I know I don't get out much, but I do know what today is. I just didn't think you'd… I don't know, go to all this effort? I mean, most days you'd flip out if I even suggested this, telling me it was too risky and-"

"What do you mean what today is?" he cut in as the doors opened and Willa pulled back a little to see that he looked genuinely confused.

"Are you serious?"

"What do you think this is? A vacation?" He snapped out the last word and jerked forward, pulling her with him as he moved. Willa followed, confusion immediately filling the void that the retreating excitement had left behind.

He slid the key card in and the light blinked green, allowing them into the room closest to the stairwell, and he all but dragged her inside. Without explanation he turned and bolted the door shut behind them, her bag still in his hand. It was only then that Willa realized that he didn't have one of his own. "Robert, I think you need to tell me right now what's going on."

The man she loved turned, finally dropping her bag and a breath left him as he pulled the cap from his head. "Ran into some of the boys before I could slip away this evening," he said.

He started to unravel his scarf, slipping past her and Willa watched him carefully as she shrugged her own overcoat from her shoulders. "That's not unusual."

Robert hummed softly. "Jack."

The name struck and Willa suppressed a shudder. He was one of the Seven that had taken her that night, and in the terrible few hours that they had her before Robert had shown up and hauled her away Jack had been one of the ones to terrify her the most. There was something in his eyes that left her chilled to her core even more than the rest of them. "What bout him?" His teeth clicked together audibly and Willa caught his eyes. "Robert, you're not going to get away with sidestepping this one. Not when you drag me all the way here, make me think….."

Dark brows drew together. "What'd you think this was?"

All at once she felt the blood rush to her cheeks. This was stupid. What had she been thinking? That Robert had taken her on a romantic getaway weekend like a normal man might have? That he'd pulled his head out of his own plans, his own scheming for five minutes to make her feel like a normal woman for a night, maybe even two? Dinner, drinks, maybe a movie, and a chance to wake up with him the next morning. It all sounded so far fetched now, and the more she turned it over in her mind the more heated her face felt.

"Willa?"

"I thought this was a Valentine's weekend getaway," she mumbled, hating the mousy sound of her own voice as it escaped.

He stared at her for a long moment, blinking owlishly at her, and finally he took a heavy seat on the bed, a soft sound escaping him as he did. "You thought…."

"It was stupid, okay? Of course it'd be something having to do with your idiot pack of Revenants. I just don't know why you thought you needed to drag me all the way out here."

"He brought you up."

"Good for him. He thinks I'm dead, what does it matter?"

"Willa, if they found out-"

"Oh don't start," she snapped and a small part of her knew she was fueling the misplaced anger so that she could push aside her own embarrassment. "You fall back on that every damn time you want something from me. Stay in the treehouse. Don't go out to the lake. And if _I_ had suggested this, boy…. You and I both know how that would have ended. I would have gotten a lecture about how dangerous they are and how much is at stake. You know what, Robert? They don't know I'm alive. No one but you and me know I'm alive, so you can take a breath and order us some food while I go take a bath in an actual bathtub with bubbles and the works, because I know you're not gonna agree to go down to the restaurant downstairs because maybe - just _maybe_ \- we might be seen!" Her hands were flying as she spoke, the words coming out on a single, long, angry breath.

"Willa, I need to get back to Purgatory. I need to make sure-"

"You do that and I won't be here when you get back." His jaw snapped shut and she watched him stiffen, her own anger boiling over. "That's right. You go and you lose your ticket out of here. Your call." With that, she turned into the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind her hard enough to rattle the wall.

She stood on the other side of the door for half a beat, anger warring with guilt and shifting violently back to anger. She stomped over to the faucet to run the bath water as hot as she thought she could stand it and began to strip down, her clothes falling to the floor and her hands shaking as she unfastened her hair from its braid.

Then she heard it. She couldn't be sure with the sound of the water pouring from the faucet and into the tub, but it sounded like a door closing softly. It could have been one of the other doors in the long hallway. It had to be. Robert wouldn't have left. No matter how angry he was, he wouldn't risk it, would he?

No, of course not.

That decided Willa stepped into the tub, pins and needles running up and down her legs as she sank deeper into the hot water, finally taking a seat in the deep bath. She leaned back, letting the heat loosen muscles and work at the stress from the evening. They were fine, she promised herself. Robert was just out there sulking, possibly even feeling like as big of an idiot for worrying over stupid Jack as she had been for thinking he was actually taking her somewhere nice for just a little slice of normal in their strange lives.

Willa slipped down, her shoulders sinking under the surface and her hair floated around her as she glared at the falling water. Immortal or not, the man was going to worry himself to death. He put too much pressure on himself. The Revenants, the Heirs. She knew that each death still weighed on him to at least some degree, and as much as he snarled any time Wyatt Earp's name might be mentioned, Willa knew him. He might hate him, but not nearly as much as he loved the man. Once he decided someone was worthy of his loyalty he was there to the end. And that was why he would be there when she decided that he had suffered long enough by himself.

She leaned forward and turned the water flow down and then finally off, the only sound following that of her shifting back to lean against the tub's end. Everything else was quiet. There was no shuffling, no sound of the news or even squeak of the bed as he took a seat to pull out a book. A book that he wouldn't have because he hadn't brought a bag. He had just planned to drop her off in a new cage and leave her.

Frustration bubbled again and Willa listened hard, hearing nothing. After a long moment she let herself slip beneath the surface of the water, coming back up a handful of seconds later for breath and to scrub shampoo and conditioner through her hair hard enough that it hurt. From there she reached for the soap and her long bath turned into a quick dip, the silence from beyond the door driving her mad. It was stupid. She knew it was stupid. He was right on the other side.

Willa jerked the stopper out from the drain and stood, wrapping a towel around herself and squeezing the excess water from her long, dark blonde hair before reaching for a robe. It was soft and she tied it around herself as relaxing evening drained away.

There was no point in putting it off. She moved the door and took a breath, steadying herself with a story to explain why she was _not_ making sure that the one person she trusted in the entire world hadn't betrayed that trust by leaving her all alone. Once she'd settled on something reasonable enough she pulled the door open and stepped out into an empty room.

He was gone.

It felt like a kick to the gut. He was gone. He'd left.

Her breathing hitched as she half-stumbled into the room like he might be hidden away in a corner somewhere. There was no sign of anything left behind. He'd taken his scarf and the cap he had worn and he had left her to her decision. He'd gone back to Purgatory, so focused on whatever enemy he saw looming in the shadows that he couldn't see how much she needed him there with her that night. How much the woman that loved him wanted him there.

The room blurred around her and Willa blinked hard, hot tears sliding down her face and she let her knees buckle beneath her, sinking to the floor in a heap as she tried to drag air into her lungs. It hurt. It hurt to breathe and to think and to feel. Everything hurt and he was gone.

A click drew her attention and Willa turned back towards the door, finding it opening up and she pulled her robe a little closer around her, ready for whatever fight was about to come her way. A familiar face appeared, though, and paused in the opening, blue eyes meeting hazel. "Willa, what happened?"

"You left, you jackass," she managed to choke out.

She watched his expression shift to confusion to pain to regret. "I went downstairs. Hotels don't keep bubbles. Guess some might, I wouldn't know, but this one doesn't." He held up a bag. "But they've got a corner store with it."

"I thought you went back to Purgatory."

"You made it pretty damn clear you didn't want me to," he murmured, and she didn't miss the sharpness in his words.

Willa pushed back hard against the tears. She wasn't a weeper. She had never been a weeper. Damn the man. "Wouldn't want to lose your ticket out."

His eyes narrowed dangerously. "You know damn well that ain't why I stay."

"I know," she admitted softly and saw his stance ease a little.

Robert set the bag down and suddenly he was squatted down on his heels in front of her, reaching forward to thumb at the tears. "I wouldn't leave you," he said, his voice a little gentler, even if it was still rough and strained, and his palm came to rest on her cheek. "Not 'cause you're my ticket out. You know it's more than that, don't you? For me, it's so much more than that."

Willa swallowed hard, finding that intense blue gaze locked on her and his face just inches away from hers. When she found her voice again it was barely above a whisper. "How so?"

He leaned in, shifting to his knee in front of her, and then he was kissing her. It was warm and gentle, and she knew he was trying to tell her, but she needed him to say it. As they broke, as her eyes fluttered open again and she found him so close to her, her lips parted to tell him just that, but a sharp knock at the door drew both of their attentions.

Robert eased a little. "Dinner," he acknowledged, standing.

Willa loosed a shaky breath as he moved to let them bring it in and she picked herself up off the floor with as much dignity as possible. He'd ordered a nice dinner, the trays covered and a bottle of what she could only assume was nice wine on the cart that was being left behind as Robert handed the young man a few bills and shuffled him back out. He turned, lifting his hand up to run it along his mohawk and removing the hat again with it. He tossed it on the bed. "You hungry?"

"Starved," she said, not realizing it until that moment.

He worked at opening the bottle as she uncovered the trays, more than a little frustrated with it by the time she took it away and had it open in just a few seconds. He shot her a funny look and she shrugged. "You think Daddy just drank whisky?"

"Ward didn't deserve you girls."

Willa hummed noncommittally and reached for a plate. The steak was cooked just the way she liked it - funny, because she was sure that she hadn't actually had steak since before the Revenants invaded her home and her life had been turned more upside down than a future-Heir's childhood was anyway - and she took a seat at the little desk to start cutting into it, accepting the glass of wine that Robert handed her.

They ate in silence for several long, excruciating moments, Robert having taken a seat on the floor next to the bed and eating his own steak like he hadn't had anything in a week. It was possible, she supposed. He did forget to eat sometimes. And sleep. It drove her mad. The day the curse broke that was going to have to change or he was going to run himself into the ground more than he already did.

"Are you ready to tell me what had you so spooked tonight?" Willa ventured carefully, doing her best to keep her tone neutral.

Robert was staring at his food - or what was left of it - and he frowned deeply. She watched him turn over his phrasing and his approach, leaving her to talk herself out of sighing loudly until he pulled in a breath to speak. "There's always someone lookin' for a way to knock the man on top off," he said after a long moment. "The first sign for blood, of weakness. There's a few I keep my eye on. Some of 'em might have a chance, but most of 'em are just stupid. Red had been pitchin' a fit all afternoon. Drunk off his ass, nearly arrested in broad daylight."

"Damn," Willa breathed.

"I handled it. It happens. Red wasn't the issue."

"You said it was Jack."

"Yeah," he breathed out and she didn't miss the way he winced a little. "Jack's one of the ones I watch carefully. He… pushes. Like Lou used to. Doesn't get that you've got to give to get. All he wants is to get. Take, take, take." His teeth snapped loudly and Willa set what was left of her food down on the little desk and moved to sit next to him on the floor. Robert didn't look at her, didn't move, but she thought she saw the muscles in his shoulders ease just a little. It was easier to see without that giant coat of his on.

Blue eyes slid open and he pushed a breath out in the form of a growl. "We exchanged words, he didn't like 'em, we got into it. Long the way your name got dropped. Could be nothing, could mean he was gloating. That he had Revenants loyal to him going to the treehouse right then to grab you. To…" They closed again and she definitely saw him wince that time.

Willa shifted so that she was facing him, reaching her hand to touch his face and he leaned into it, almost nuzzling her palm. "I won't ever let 'em touch you again," he swore softly. "If it costs me everything, I'll keep them away from you."

Guilt worked its way through her and she could hear the rawness in his voice. She leaned in, her lips pressing against the center of his for a moment before they moved to the corner, then down, a kiss against the white patch in his beard and down his jawline to his neck. She heard him moan, feeling a hand come up to land on her arm, but she didn't stop, her own hand drifting up to start tugging at the layers of clothes he was wearing. He moved to help her and together they started stripping them away as she returned briefly to kissing his his lips, her hands traveling up under his shirt, ready to take that from him as well.

Robert pulled back suddenly, a pained sound leaving him and she froze.

Neither of them moved for a long moment, her hands resting against his skin and him leaned back against the bed, his head tilted back so that she could barely see the way his eyes were squeezed shut, lines deep in his face from the pain that she had caused. Willa swallowed hard, readying herself, and lifted the edge of his henley up to find long, half-healed marks across his torso. They'd been bad when the wounds had been dealt, from what she could tell, but his quick healing worked in his favour as muscle and skin knitted back together at a rate that a human couldn't dream of.

He'd said that that he and Jack had gotten into it.

"Robert," she breathed and that seemed to snap him out of it.

He sat up, his eyes catching hers. "I'm alright."

"Bullshit."

Somehow that pulled a smile out of him and he leaned forward and kissed her again. It was soft and gentle, those nimble fingers of his playing along the edge of her jaw as he drew her closer. "I will be."

"How often does this happen?" she asked, not sure she wanted the answer.

From the look in his eyes, she could tell he didn't want to answer. Even so, he pushed a long breath out through his nose. "Just depends. Things settle down after an Heir dies. Into a sort of rhythm, but like I said. There are a few. Jack won't be a problem for another few years now."

"What'd you do to him?"

"You really wanna know?"

"Yes."

"Broke his neck."

"Good."

He chuckled and settled back against the end of the bed. Willa shifted up to grab her glass of wine before joining him again on the floor. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and she settled in, leaned half against his chest. She sipped on it and could feel his fingers teasing at her wet hair. She felt him slowly relaxing against her and she loosed a long breath. "Robert?"

"Mmm?"

"How am I more than your ticket out of here?"

Part of her regretted asking the moment the words left her. She knew that she was. If she thought he didn't care for her she never would have pushed him for a relationship. Things would have just continued as they were and she would have decided if she wanted to stay or go. Perhaps she could have come back for him when she turned twenty-seven, but it hadn't been that simple. It hadn't just been a friendship, and she had known she wasn't the only one that felt that way. It was in the way his features softened and the looks he didn't think she saw. It was in the touches that he immediately pulled back on and the way that Bobo Del Rey, the Revenant that could somehow convince a horde of demons to do what he wanted them to even against their own nature, had stumbled over his own words, unable to string together a simple sentence.

Like now. Just like now.

"My father died in the Civil War," he said very slowly after a long pause, and Willa nestled a little closer, listening intently to the rare story from his life before demondom. "My mother… never really recovered. She survived it, but in her own way I'm not sure she outlived him." He paused, his voice so soft that it almost didn't sound like him. "I asked her about it once, right before I left out from home. Asked her why she never married again if she was so lonely and she told me…. That swans mate for life. The moment she chose my father and he chose her, they were in it for life."

Willa let the words sink in for a moment, her free hand seeking out Robert's. He took it and her fingers wrapped around his.

"I don't think I'm any different, even now," he continued. "Wyatt used to give me hell 'bout women, but I…. I just never saw the point in somethin' that wouldn't last." He pulled her hand up to his lips, pressing a kiss against her knuckles. "The thought burning at my brain since I woke up in Purgatory after Wyatt died was to get free of this curse I didn't deserve. By any means necessary, I wanted free. Didn't put a lot of thought into what came after. Now… Long as I walk across with you, anything's worth it. I wanna cross it to spend the rest of my life with you."

She pulled back enough to look him in the eye. "I'm your swan?"

"Yeah."

"For life?"

"For life. I don't know how to do this halfway, Willa. If you aren't in all the way, tell me now, because I am."

A smile tugged at her lips and she nodded. "I'm in. For life."

She could feel him smile - that real smile that was so rare - as he pressed a kiss to the side of her head. "I love you."

"I love you too," she confessed, the words lightening the stress of the evening as she focused on his arm around her and the way he was still pressing his nose into her wet hair. "Are you going to stay tonight?"

"They can wait 'till the mornin'."

"Good. I don't want to wake up without you."

He mumbled something she couldn't quite understand and it may have been more of an affectionate sound than anything. He pulled back after a moment. "Is it really Valentine's Day?"

Willa laughed, shaking her head. "You're an idiot."

He chuckled and leaned down to kiss her again, the rest of the world and the struggles they faced melting away if only for one night.


End file.
